Donald Trump just can't get enough of the world's strongmen. Today he and his White House will be hosting Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, one of the most notorious far-right figures in Europe. The far-right nationalist has been furiously eroding his own nation's democratic institutions while cozying up to Putin's Russia—and Russian intelligence services.
Presidents Obama and Bush both refused to grant the would-be autocrat the honor of an official visit, and even Team Trump has been reluctant to be seen as embracing the likes of Orbán. In the end, though, Trump and his allies have eagerly embraced a new self-appointed role as the nation's top arms dealers, and that seems to be a major reason for reversing course.
Rather than a reward or an affirmation, the meeting can instead be framed as a carrot — an attempt to persuade Mr. Orban to buy American weapons and give greater priority to American foreign policy interests.
We can safely dispense with any notion that master negotiator Donald Trump is meeting with the far-right dismantler of democratic norms in order to convince him to reverse anti-democratic policies or otherwise give "priority" to American foreign policy concerns. Trump has met with a string of authoritarian figures, and is afterwards full of nothing but blustering praise for each; he gets along more swimmingly with the autocrats who come to visit than with leaders of France, Germany, or Canada.
And so Viktor Orbán joins the list of hard-right nationalist leaders granted access to Trump that previous presidents studiously avoided. The White House seems to be making considerable effort to convince reporters that nothing in particular should be read into that; the efforts of previous leaders will likely be erased the first time Trump opens his mouth on the subject.